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My Dark Places James Ellroy 9780517288993 Books

Download As PDF : My Dark Places James Ellroy 9780517288993 Books

My Dark Places James Ellroy 9780517288993 Books

I read a lot of books, many of them memoirs and biographies. As of late, I have been complaining about the rise of the "saccharine pop" subgenre, which consists of tell-all books by pseudo-celebrities and plastic stars (i.e. heiresses, reality TV personalities, wannabe rockers, socialites) that lack any substance and are written purely for capital gain. Rest assured, James Ellroy's "My Dark Places" is not one of them. It is, in the simplest terms, the real and raw deal. If memory serves, I can think of no other memoir in which its author conducts a search for his mother's murderer, who may have very well been a misogynistic serial killer. Here is a book that not only lives up to its title, but surpasses it. Ellroy shies away from absolutely nothing in the course of sharing his life story: his budding sexuality (which included experimentation with same-sex friends), his time as a drug addict and petty criminal, his ploy to escape the U.S army, and the fact that he is an avid true crime fan. But all of these things pale in comparison to the fact that his mother was viciously murdered -- strangled, actually -- when he was ten years old.

The effect that his mother's killing had on him is undeniable and, indeed, led to the author's obsession with violence against women. After several decades and following his successful writing career, Ellroy decides to hire a detective, called Stoner, in order to help him track down his mother's murderer, who the police failed to apprehend when the crime was relatively fresh. Again, we are spared no details, whether it's regarding the content of the police report or the description of the murder itself. The things Ellroy is forced to read and learn about his mother are things that none of us should ever have to...and the fact that he is willing to share it is a testament to both his courage and his determination to catch the killer himself.

Most readers will know Ellroy for his novel that fictionalized the Black Dahlia killing; I personally did not enjoy that book and found it convoluted and disappointing (the movie was its visual equal, believe me). If you feel the same way, you mustn't let that bias you against reading "My Dark Places," otherwise, you'll be missing out. Ellroy's memoir falls into a variety of genres: true crime, memoir, subtle thriller. Though it's not for the squeamish, it is for those who are willing to allow an author to dangle them, however briefly, over his personal dark abyss. Ellroy's book packs one heck of a transgressive literary punch and pimp-smacks the pink-marshmallow prose and gilded garbage of lesser memoirs back to the soiled Hollywood street corners where they belong. It is isn't painfully clear by now, "My Dark Places" comes highly recommended.


Tags : My Dark Places [James Ellroy] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In 1958, when James Ellroy was 10 years old, his mother's body was found in a run-down town near Los Angeles. The murderer was never found; the case remains unsolved. This remarkable book--part unflinching autobiography,James Ellroy,My Dark Places,Random House Publishing,0517288990,SALE BOOKS,Biography & Autobiography General,Biography Autobiography

My Dark Places James Ellroy 9780517288993 Books Reviews

James Ellroy has the guts to share his very dark places, including a youthful obsession with grisly sex murders that he forged into a career as a crime writer. And a lifelong sexual fixation on his promiscuous mother, strangled when he was 10. This book ostensibly is about the search for her killer. But really it mourns her, something he was unable to do in life.

There's a moving self portrait that's 100 pages shorter buried in this memoir. And the endless simple declarative sentences (zero variety, a dreary "just the facts" parade) become grating. What willpower Ellroy has to sustain such an extreme noir style! For me it became tiresome, a schtick that gives equal weight to the harrowing and the mundane.
This was a fascinating book in some ways, but in other ways Ellroy leaves us hanging, just as his mother's unsolved murder left him. For example, as a forensic psychologist, I was fascinated by his early sexual deviance (he was a voyeur who stalked women, broke into their homes and stole their lingerie, and compulsively masturbated to scenes of gruesome murder) and his seemingly overnight recovery. Yet, he never shares his process of change. That section of his life is left blank.

Similarly, in his trademark staccato style he offers keen insights into sexually ravenous and murderous men, the cultural allure of victimhood, and the foibles of the criminal justice system. Yet such passages are tucked randomly among prose that, in stark contrast, exhibits a remarkable lack of insight into both his own psyche and the minds of others. The book is far too long, marred by interminable recitations of drivel. He is too hooked on his own greatness to put himself into the shoes of the average reader and realize that overloading us with random factoids destroys the drama of his long search for answers in his mother's death. As other reviewers have noted, a tough editor would have helped immensely.
Excellent example of autobiographical writing. Ought to be taught in classes about autobiography as a literary genre. Spoiler warnings, though I think everyone know reads this already knows the story. But in case you don't, Ellroy does not manage to solve his mother's murder after 40 years. The reader never really expects him to solve it. The killer would have to be 70 plus years old, meaning he is more than likely dead at the time this was written. Plus, if he solved it, it would already have been made into a big Hollywood movie. The "suspense" element is when will Ellroy stop focusing on the "Killer" and start focusing on Jean, his mother. I.e. when does he lose his preoccupation with Justice with a big J and focus on reconciliation. I won't reveal the answer to that one.

One thing that surprised me---but maybe it is because I was raised in the 60s---did no one speculate that the "Swarthy man" might really be a woman? When I read the description of "his" freakishly narrow jaw, "woman in drag" was my first thought. I ran it by my husband--that was his first thought, too. A woman could have committed the crime(s). A woman could not strangle a conscious woman the way a man could, but she could beat her over the back of the head and then strangle her when she was unconscious. And the covering of the lower torso with a coat struck me as a feminine thing to do, like the killer trying to conceal her own vulnerable parts.. Hollywood in the 1950s had plenty of gays and probably had plenty of cross dressers, too, and women are not typically squeamish about hanging around butch lesbians the way that men can be squeamish about hanging out with feme gays.
I read a lot of books, many of them memoirs and biographies. As of late, I have been complaining about the rise of the "saccharine pop" subgenre, which consists of tell-all books by pseudo-celebrities and plastic stars (i.e. heiresses, reality TV personalities, wannabe rockers, socialites) that lack any substance and are written purely for capital gain. Rest assured, James Ellroy's "My Dark Places" is not one of them. It is, in the simplest terms, the real and raw deal. If memory serves, I can think of no other memoir in which its author conducts a search for his mother's murderer, who may have very well been a misogynistic serial killer. Here is a book that not only lives up to its title, but surpasses it. Ellroy shies away from absolutely nothing in the course of sharing his life story his budding sexuality (which included experimentation with same-sex friends), his time as a drug addict and petty criminal, his ploy to escape the U.S army, and the fact that he is an avid true crime fan. But all of these things pale in comparison to the fact that his mother was viciously murdered -- strangled, actually -- when he was ten years old.

The effect that his mother's killing had on him is undeniable and, indeed, led to the author's obsession with violence against women. After several decades and following his successful writing career, Ellroy decides to hire a detective, called Stoner, in order to help him track down his mother's murderer, who the police failed to apprehend when the crime was relatively fresh. Again, we are spared no details, whether it's regarding the content of the police report or the description of the murder itself. The things Ellroy is forced to read and learn about his mother are things that none of us should ever have to...and the fact that he is willing to share it is a testament to both his courage and his determination to catch the killer himself.

Most readers will know Ellroy for his novel that fictionalized the Black Dahlia killing; I personally did not enjoy that book and found it convoluted and disappointing (the movie was its visual equal, believe me). If you feel the same way, you mustn't let that bias you against reading "My Dark Places," otherwise, you'll be missing out. Ellroy's memoir falls into a variety of genres true crime, memoir, subtle thriller. Though it's not for the squeamish, it is for those who are willing to allow an author to dangle them, however briefly, over his personal dark abyss. Ellroy's book packs one heck of a transgressive literary punch and pimp-smacks the pink-marshmallow prose and gilded garbage of lesser memoirs back to the soiled Hollywood street corners where they belong. It is isn't painfully clear by now, "My Dark Places" comes highly recommended.